Rollover
by celiacprincess
Summary: After rushing to the hospital to see her brother, Mac discovers that Dick is a few rooms down thanks to a hit-and-run accident. It quickly becomes obvious that this wasn't an accident and someone is out to get Dick - by any means necessary. The Bond and Q team are back in action as they work to figure out who's behind the events and why. (Post S3; not movie compliant. LoVe & MaDi)
1. Chapter 1

**(A/N: Set post-season 3. You'll get the details in the story – either this chapter or a later one. This doesn't line up with the movie. Enjoy!)**

Mac spun around in her desk chair as other people talked. Conference calls had become the bane of her existence, but they were better than video chats, especially when she already knew the things they were talking about. She'd tried, during previous calls, to do something productive – eat lunch, reply to emails, _something_ besides just drawing random things on scrap paper – but it never really worked. The first time, she'd had a mouth full of pasta when someone asked her a question, and then she accidentally replied to an email from someone on the conference call… Mac had just come to accept that the hour or so every week would be a total waste of her life and moved on.

She tuned back into the conversation when someone new started talking and then checked the email with the agenda. It made her want to bang her head against her desk – any more discussion on firewalls and she would throw her computer out the window – but before she could do or say anything, her phone vibrated. Mac dove for it, silencing the ringer before it could make any more noise, but knocked the stapler off the side of the desk. She closed her eyes as it clattered, and the person speaking stopped talking.

"Is everyone okay?"

Mac sighed. There was no way for them to know who the noise came from, so she just waited until a couple people spoke up and then added her own affirmation in before muting herself. The meeting went back to being boring and Mac turned her attention to her cell phone. The phone call had come from her mother, who, upon getting ignored, had left a voicemail and sent a text. Mac checked the text first, but all it said was to listen to the voicemail. _Thanks, Mom,_ she thought. _That was helpful_. After double-checking to make sure that her end of the conference call was still muted, she navigated to her voicemail and clicked on her mom's latest message.

" _Hi, honey,"_ her mother's voice said in her ear. _"I know you're at work, but we're at the hospital with your brother."_ Mac took a sharp breath as her mother's message played in her ear. Sports accident, unconscious for a while but awake now, room 611. The words in between were just filler words, and Mac had enough trouble keeping her thoughts straight without worrying about extra words. She jotted Ryan's room number down on a sticky note and checked the time. The meeting would be over in minutes, so she started packing up her laptop case. A perk to owning her company was being able to leave without asking permission. It wasn't a perk she used often – Mac liked what she did at work – but it certainly was nice today.

By the time the meeting ended, she was ready to leave, right down to the keys in her hand. She unmuted the line as everyone said their goodbyes, and then bolted out of her office, barely slowing down to tell her receptionist that she was leaving, probably for the rest of the day. The drive to the hospital wasn't much better. She was anxious and people kept getting in her way. She sent a text to her mom as she parked her Beetle and took a deep breath. Her pace was slightly slower going into the hospital than it had been leaving the office, but only because she was less sure of where she was going. As the elevator took her to the sixth floor, she studied the floor names. Ryan was on the 'Medical Surgical' floor. Mac decided that knowing the name of the floor didn't really help things. The doors opened and she glanced over at the nurses' station. If there hadn't been someone there, she wouldn't have bothered, but it felt rude to just ignore the lady.

"Excuse me?" Mac said, expecting her voice to shake and being thankful that it didn't. "My brother's in room 611…" she trailed off, not knowing if she was asking for permission or not.

The nurse looked up and smiled. "You're Ryan's sister?" Mac nodded. "He's a sweetheart. I'll walk you there. I need to check in on him again anyway." Mac nodded again and they set off down the hall. "Ryan was awake by the time they got him here, and he cleared his CT scan without an issue, so he's just under observation for a few more hours and then he should be good to go."

Mac let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "Thank you, really," she said to the smiling nurse as they stopped outside of room 611. The nurse nodded, and Mac opened the door.

Ryan's eyes lit up. "Hey sis," he said cheerfully. "Hi, Molly." It took Mac a second to realize that she hadn't asked what the nurse's name was. "What's up?"

His question was directed back at Mac, so she sat down in the chair next to her brother and grinned. "Nothing much. Your injury got me out of work, so I suppose I should thank you. Pizza and video games?"

Ryan nodded, wincing for a second before accepting the offer. "Are you going to hang out here until then? Mom and Dad went to go fill a prescription, but I don't know if they'll rush back if you're here. They seem to really hate hospitals."

Mac bit her lip for a second before forcing a laugh. "Yeah, I'll stay here. They probably have stuff to catch up on if they want to take advantage of me being at home for a family dinner." She pulled out her phone to text her mom while Molly did whatever it was she needed to do. Mac kept her eyes on her phone and her breathing steady. She knew why her parents probably didn't like hospitals, but Ryan didn't, and he wasn't going to find out now.

"I'm not sure if you're going to want to play video games when you get home," Molly said, finally looking up from her laptop. "Concussions like yours tend to result in a pretty bad headache."

Mac looked at Ryan. "Well, rain check on the video games then? We can still do pizza, and maybe a board game or something."

Ryan nodded. "Sure. It's not often that you hang out at home on a Wednesday." He grinned.

Mac rolled her eyes. "Don't even. It's not often that you're even home on a Wednesday. Somehow, you ended up with a social life."

Ryan was right, though. Mac spent one of the weekend days with her family, usually, unless things were crazy at work. Owning her own company at 25 meant lots of long hours, and while Mac didn't hate it – far from that, actually – it did mean less free time than she expected. Still, she wouldn't trade her job for anything. The company was her baby, built from the ground up after the first website deal with Logan back in college. They surprisingly still made money from that site, as well as the several other sites they'd piggy backed off of it. Logan had gotten emails from a couple friends, asking who made the site. He'd passed their information along to Mac, and when she realized that they were serious, had agreed. Casey Gant got on board a few years ago, asking her to completely redo the website for the publishing company that he now ran, which brought her contacts from both the sleazy and the professional areas of the internet. She was never sure if Logan was responsible for Casey's decision to hire her, but she was grateful for the chance. It was his contract that pushed her to actually do web design and tech support as a job. From there, she was able to contract out things herself, always having the final approval before the client got to see it. It was, after all, her reputation on the line. She moved from contracting jobs to hiring people, and it didn't seem like there was an end in sight.

It also left her with the time and freedom to do a little hacking for Veronica or Keith, on an as-needed basis, which was less frequently since Keith was re-elected as Sherriff. Mac grinned at the memory of learning that Veronica's dad had somehow managed to win the election. They hadn't really expected it, and Veronica had sworn up and down that she wouldn't do anything to screw it up this time. She hadn't – the PI work that she did for the rest of the semester was simple enough. She'd gone off to her FBI internship and come back a little older. It wasn't a huge surprise when she transferred to Stanford, but it was a surprise when she came back for graduation and announced that she was staying. Logan was thrilled, but wary, so Mac was probably the only one that knew how he really felt. They'd gotten closer over the years – working on the website was an excuse that they both used pretty often. Mac used it to make sure he was okay; she didn't know why he used it. It had taken some gentle nudging, but Veronica and Logan finally agreed to try being friends again. That lasted longer than any of them predicted, but they wouldn't be epic if they didn't end up together. It was working well enough, and Mac didn't really worry about them. She was only slightly bummed out about it, and only on occasions like this one, where they went on vacation together.

The thought of them vacationing together like a normal couple made Mac laugh, which came out as a little snort, and Ryan immediately started laughing.

"You just got lost in your own little world there, sis," he said when he was done laughing. "What's going on?"

She shrugged. "Nothing really. I was just thinking about work." Ryan made a face at her, and she laughed. "Not like a project or anything, just that I actually work for myself and not for, I don't know, Kane Software or something."

Ryan grinned. "They wish."

Mac grinned back, glad that her little brother was supportive of her. "Yeah, yeah. Wouldn't that be the strangest thing?" She didn't finish the thought, but the idea of working for the man that inadvertently changed her life gave her a weird feeling. Jake Kane didn't know it, obviously, but had he not covered up Lilly's murder and gone after Keith Mars, then Veronica wouldn't have been an outcast and she wouldn't have become friends with Mac. It wasn't the first time she'd thought about it, but the realization hit her that she could probably say the same about Aaron Echolls. She shivered at the thought.

Ryan shrugged, misinterpreting the shiver. "You're probably making more now than you would working there, and we both know you have more fun, so who cares what's strange or not? Besides, this is Neptune. It's always weird here."

Mac laughed, because he was right and because he didn't know the half of it. She let the subject drop, and they talked and played cards (another conference call distraction she sometimes used) for the next couple hours as nurses came in and out, making sure that Ryan was reacting the way he was supposed to. At one point, Ryan convinced a nurse to bring them both jello, but otherwise, it was pretty dull.

"It's been a while since they said I would probably be leaving soon," Ryan commented as a nurse walked past his room. "I wonder if that meant I just could, or if they'll start the process soon." Ryan sighed and shifted uncomfortably.

"I'll go find out," she said, grabbing her phone and standing up. The nurse had gotten a little bit of a head start, and Mac opted for a bit of a jog instead of shouting down the hallway.

"Excuse me?" she said, catching up to the nurse a few rooms down. "The doctor said they were going to release Ryan, my little brother, and I just wanted to see if there was anything I needed to do before we left. I think my dad's coming back to take care of paperwork, but if I can speed that process up any, that would be great." Mac took a breath and the nurse grinned.

"You can fill out the things that you know, but we really need your dad's signature on the forms. It's not too hard, I promise. I'll come check on you guys in a few minutes, just in case."

Mac smiled at the nurse. There were so many friendly people here, and she was really thankful for it. "Thanks. It's kind of been a long day for all of us and –"

"Mac?"

She spun around at the voice, not bothering to finish her sentence. The nurse must have known that the conversation was over, and Mac heard her move down the hallway. Personally, she was too stunned to do anything besides stand there and stare into the room for a minute.

"Dick?"

 **(A/N: Right okay so full-length story with a mystery happening here. I'm not nervous at all. Sigh. Shoutout to one of my best friends for letting me ask 23 questions about hospitals and car accidents and to my other best friend for constant encouragement. Also, does anyone remember how much younger Ryan is? I'm not sure it'll matter but I'm kind of curious.)**


	2. Chapter 2

**(A/N: I'm gonna go with Ryan being 17 while Mac is 25. Shoutout to Bondopoulos for pointing me in the right direction! Also, happy Valentine's Day to all you lovelies out there. Big hugs from me to you!)**

Mac blinked and stepped just over the threshold. "Dick, why are you in the hospital?"

The blonde boy shrugged. "Car accident." He said it like it wasn't that big of a deal, and Mac narrowed her eyes at him slightly. He didn't look too terribly banged up – there were a few cuts on his face and arms, but nothing major.

"What happened?" She moved closer to him, still studying him for what he might be leaving out.

Dick shrugged again. "Some asshole in a truck hit me and I flipped." He seemed calmer than she expected, but Mac came to the conclusion that he was probably on some kind of drug for pain.

"You flipped… like, you got mad, or…?"

He gave a half laugh, and then winced like Ryan had earlier. "No," he said finally, shaking his head. "The Liberty rolled over. Truck drove off," he paused for a second and looked at her. "It wasn't my fault."

Mac blinked. She'd gotten to know Dick a little bit better through her friendship with Logan, but she had never seen him this serious. Maybe it was because he was in the hospital, clearly in some kind of pain, and also sober, but it really seemed like he wanted her to believe him. She nodded, unable to say anything. Before she got a chance to come up with something, Molly brushed into the room.

"Hey Mac. You know Dick, too?" She smiled kindly at them both before crossing the room to one of the many machines in the room.

"Too?" Dick looked confused. "Uh, Mac? Why are you here?"

She grinned. "Ryan's got a concussion." At the blank look on Dick's face, she continued. "My little brother. He's right down the hall." She shrugged. "Shouldn't be for much longer…"

Dick's eyes snapped up. "Logan's out of town, isn't he?"

Mac nodded, wondering for a second what prompted that segue, before it hit her as well. "Oh. You don't have a ride out of here, do you?"

Dick rolled his eyes and shook his head. "The jeep is totaled. Sucks. I liked that one."

Mac suppressed an eye roll herself. He was as laid-back as ever; the sincere look gone from his face now that they had an audience. Molly was still doing something, but Dick wasn't paying attention. Mac studied him as he shrugged and closed his eyes, leaning back on the pillows behind him. She made a mental note to see if Molly or one of the other nurses would tell her how strong Dick's pain medication was. Molly was a pretty redhead, and Mac hadn't seen him pass up the chance to flirt since… well, since…

"I'll take you home," she blurted, trying to stop the onslaught of memories that always came when she even thought about graduation. "I mean, if you want me to."

Dick opened his eyes, and Mac saw Molly hide a smile. She was fairly sure that the nurse had no idea what the history between the two of them was, which left Mac briefly wondering what it was that Molly was thinking. The thought didn't linger long, because Dick shrugged again.

"That'd be cool," he said, closing his eyes again. "If you're okay with it."

Mac nodded before realizing that he couldn't see her. "Yeah, it's fine. I don't mind." She took a breath. "I'm, um, going to go check on Ryan. He's probably going to get out before you, so I'll come back here after?"

It wasn't really supposed to be a question, but Dick nodded, not opening his eyes. Molly grinned at her, and told Dick that she'd be back in a bit with a doctor. They walked out together, and Molly motioned for Mac to follow her to the nurse's station.

"So I'm not exactly supposed to do this, but he doesn't have any family listed and we didn't call the emergency contact… I just wanted someone to know because I'm pretty sure he won't remember." Molly shrugged. "He's pretty drugged right now."

Mac laughed. "I guessed that. He's… nicer than usual."

"So you two are friends?" Molly put down a few of the files she had in her hands.

Mac winced. "Not quite," she said, thinking quickly. "His best friend is dating my best friend."

Molly nodded. "Fair enough. Anyway, I guess he kind of mentioned it, but he was in a rollover accident yesterday. The other driver fled the scene, but there were witnesses and one of them called an ambulance. He's got some broken ribs, one of which we were concerned about. I don't really want to scare you," Molly paused and looked at Mac before continuing. "He's got several closed splinter fractures, which don't pose a threat to his heart or lungs, but one of them is a jagged open fracture. It's not even close to as bad as it could be, so we'll release him today, but he's going to need to take it easy for the next several weeks at least." Mac nodded, and the nurse continued. "He also got tossed around a bit, so he's dealing with whiplash and bruising right now, but neither of those things are very serious." Molly paused again. "Does he live with anyone?"

Mac nodded slowly. "Logan lives with him, but he's out of town right now. Is it… Can he be alone?"

Molly nodded, and Mac let out a sigh of relief. The nurse laughed and explained that Dick would be fine by himself, but he wouldn't be able to do everyday things for at least the first week. After that, he'd still need to spend the majority of his time in bed, but it would be a little easier and safer for him to move around. Mac nodded, absorbing it all. She agreed with the nurse; Dick wouldn't have remembered all of this information.

Molly was just finishing up when Mac's dad exited the elevator. He grinned at his daughter, and Molly walked with them to Ryan's room. Mac snuck a glance into Dick's room as they passed by, but his eyes were still closed. Mac snuck a glance into Dick's room as they passed by, but his eyes were still closed. Mac caught herself hoping that he wasn't in as much pain as she guessed he was. Broken ribs had to hurt, and they rendered him unable to do the one thing that she knew he enjoyed most – surf. She shook her head, clearing the thoughts. It wasn't her job to entertain him, she remembered.

It was maybe an hour or so before Ryan was officially good to go. He spent the time talking excitedly to his dad about Mac staying for dinner, causing both of them to laugh at Ryan's excitement. Mac guessed that it was more about getting out of the hospital and the promise of pizza than it was her hanging out at home, but she didn't say anything.

She followed them out of Ryan's room, but stopped just past the door. "I'll see you guys at home in a little bit," Mac said as Ryan and her dad started towards the elevator. Ryan nodded, but her dad looked at her curiously. She gave him a half shrug. "A friend of Logan's is here also and doesn't have a way home. I'm just going to give him a ride. It's not going to take too long."

Her dad nodded and gave her a smile, clearly proud that she was being a good friend. That was the thing about her parents, Mac had learned over the years. They wanted their kids to grow up to be good people, even if that meant being late for family time. Mac was grateful for the example they set for her and Ryan; she'd seen how much worse it was when parents didn't care. She told her brother that she'd call him when she left the hospital so that he could order the pizza, and she'd pick it up on her way home. That earned a grin from him and a laugh from her dad before they waved and headed towards the elevator.

Mac waited until she couldn't see them anymore and leaned against the wall outside the room her brother had just vacated before pressing the button to call her best friend. It wasn't like she needed V's permission – or Logan's, for that matter – to be nice to Dick, but time had taught her that it was best to give Veronica information as soon as possible, and Logan was pretty much the only family that Dick had. She knew that, at some point, they would find out what happened, and they were less likely to come home early if Mac assured them that everything was fine.

Veronica answered on the third ring. "Q!"

"Hey, Bond," Mac replied with a smile. "How's it going?"

"It's really nice," Veronica's voice said through the phone. "It's gorgeous and not Neptune, so that's always a plus."

Mac laughed. "Glad to hear it. Is Logan around?"

"Yeah, he's on the balcony," Veronica replied. Mac knew that Veronica's silent question was whether she should go join him or move to where he couldn't hear her reaction.

"Can you put him on speaker? It's nothing bad," she said with a grin. "Well, nothing too bad," she amended quickly.

"Sure, hang on," came the reply, and Mac heard her open a sliding door. "Okay, Mac, you've got us both."

"Hey, Mac." This time, it was Logan's voice that came through the speaker on her phone.

"Hi, Logan. I just wanted you both to know that Dick was in a car accident. He's okay, mostly, but his Jeep is totaled so I'm going to give him a ride home." Mac smiled at a passing nurse before continuing. "And his cell phone is smashed, which is why I'm passing the news along."

"Uh, Mac?" Veronica sounded concerned. "How do you know this?"

Mac laughed and explained how she ran across Dick. The two lovebirds asked a few more questions, and Mac told them everything she knew, which admittedly wasn't much beyond what Molly had told her. Ever the investigator, Veronica wanted to know about the accident, but Mac deferred, telling her she'd have to get that information from her dad. She ended up promising to have Dick call Logan when he got back to his house.

She hung up and stared at her phone for a minute before walking down the hall and stepping into Dick's room. He was awake, so Mac sat down next to him. "Hey, question. Why didn't the hospital call Logan and let him know you were here?"

Dick looked surprised by the question, and then a little sheepish. "I told them not to. I figured that I'd call him, you know, so he didn't have to hear it from some random hospital nurse, but then I found out that my phone was gone and it was too late to change my mind by then." He sighed. "And I forgot that him and Ronnie were off being a couple and that he wouldn't be around anyway, so I wasn't gonna tell him until they got back, so that Logan wouldn't think about coming home early." Dick shrugged and looked away. "No reason to upset Ronnie for nothing."

Mac was a little stunned by the amount of words that had just come out of Dick's mouth, and that none of them had been rude. She shook it off, realizing that Dick was now fiddling with the edge of the sheet.

"Hey, it's not nothing. You were in an accident. Friends care about that stuff," she paused for a second. "Logan wants you to call him when you get home." Dick looked up at her and she gave him a small smile. "Even V sounded concerned until she knew you were okay. And then she sounded pissed about someone getting away with hitting you."

Dick's eyes were a little wider than before, and Mac could only imagine what he was thinking. It wasn't often that Veronica's anger was directed at someone _because_ of Dick; the far more likely scenario was that her anger was directed _at_ Dick. If he didn't look so confused, Mac would have laughed. Instead, she took pity on him and smiled.

"So, the nurse sent your prescription to the pharmacy, which means it should be there by the time you get released. They'll probably tell you this before you leave, but you're going to need to stay in bed for a while. One of your ribs is a little worse than the others, and you could really hurt yourself if you're not careful. So just, you know, take it easy."

Dick grinned. "I can stay in bed all day," he said with an exaggerated wink. Mac rolled her eyes, but couldn't keep from laughing. It was actually a relief; the weird, serious Dick from earlier wasn't normal. She didn't know what it was that pulled him out of the funk he had been in, but she was grateful for it.

/

It took a while longer before the doctors felt comfortable releasing Dick. They wanted to make sure he was awake enough to comprehend what they told him about medication and alcohol and staying in bed. Mac hid a smile when they mentioned the last part, but Dick glanced at her and caught it anyway. She tried not to think about how strange it was that she basically had an inside joke with _Dick Casablancas_. She focused on first the doctor's words, and then the nurse's, as they outlined the next couple weeks for Dick. Mac sent a quick text to Logan when the nurse said that Dick would need an x-ray in a few weeks, hoping that he'd remember if Dick didn't. It was then that she remembered he was without a cell phone. She waited until they were alone for a moment before bringing it up.

"Hey, Dick? You have a home phone, right? He nodded, and Mac did, too. She wasn't sure if he'd thought it through yet.

"I was kind of thinking that maybe they'd send me a new cell," he said, back to his usual carefree attitude. "Or maybe I'll go get one when Logan gets back." He shrugged. "It's not a huge deal."

She looked at him for a minute before sighing. That was something she still hadn't gotten used to yet. She wasn't rich by any means, but she was getting there. Her company did well and she was good at spending less than she made. Still, the thought of being so relaxed about things like a new cell phone or car still didn't really sit well with her. She drove the same Beetle she'd gotten in high school, and even though it was getting close to time for a new one, the idea made her a little anxious.

"I mean," Dick said, speaking up again. "Usually I use it for takeout or parties. I can't go to parties and I have a laptop and a landline for takeout. I've got video games for the rest of the time. The cell phone can wait."

Mac shrugged. "Whatever you say."

Molly walked back in with a grin and a clipboard. "All we need are a few more signatures, and you two can get out of here." She handed the clipboard to Dick, who started signing, and turned to Mac. "If anything happens in the next 24 hours, let us know, but otherwise, we'll see him in three weeks."

Mac blinked. "I'm, uh… okay…" She turned her attention from the nurse to Dick, who kept his eyes trained on the clipboard in front of him. She narrowed her eyes at him before turning back to the nurse with a smile. "Sure thing. Thanks for being so great today."

Molly grinned, took the clipboard from Dick, and waved as she left the room. Mac watched her leave before turning to Dick.

"Why did she tell _me_ those things?" Mac asked as Dick started the obviously painful process of getting out of bed.

Dick sighed, but Mac assumed that it was more out of pain than at her question. "I told her that Logan was out of town and that she should add you as my emergency contact." He looked up at her, and she swore she saw a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. "Just, you know, until Logan gets back. In case I fall down the stairs and end up back at the hospital."

Mac rolled her eyes but grinned. "Dick, don't fall down the stairs." She shook her head as he started towards the door. "Because seriously, I don't want your housekeeper to find you in a pile."

Dick stopped moving for a second before glancing at her and nodding. She tried not to read too much into what she had just said, or what he might think she was implying. She didn't want Logan to lose another person, was all.

Except, it wasn't all, because as she walked down the hallway next to him and got into the elevator, she had to admit – only to herself, but admit nevertheless – that she didn't really want to lose another person, either.

 **(A/N: Thanks to everyone that showed some love to the first chapter! (: It really means a lot to me and definitely is motivation to keep writing.)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: y'all rock.**

The ride to Dick's house was uneventful, even with the pit stop at the pharmacy. Mac glanced at him every so often, but Dick kept his eyes closed for most of the trip. He handed her his credit card and ID when she pulled into the drive-thru, but otherwise, it was mostly like he wasn't even there. The silence would have been a blessing back in high school, or even college, but Mac was a little unnerved by it now. It wasn't like she wanted a conversation or jokes or even mocking comments, but those were the signs that Dick was okay. Or whatever _okay_ was for him.

Mac's thoughts swirled as she pulled into the driveway of Dick's beach house. Dick hadn't been 'okay' in years, at least not by the normal definition of the word. She wasn't totally sure if he'd ever been okay. He'd been functional, for a while, and happy, she guessed, but actually okay? That wasn't such an easy answer.

"Well, thanks," Dick said, jarring her out of her thoughts. "For, like, not making me take a cab."

Mac nodded, using the moment to pull herself together. "Yeah, sure. Do… do you need help? Getting inside, I mean." _Smooth._

Dick shrugged. "I've got my keys and the drugs they gave me. I should be okay."

There was that word again. Mac didn't say anything about it, just nodded and gave him a small smile. "Alright. Um, then take care. Remember that you can't drink with the pain pills. I know it says Tylenol, but this kind of Tylenol isn't like the regular ones…" she shook her head as Dick grinned and moved to shut the car door. "And call Logan!"

He shot her a thumbs-up as the door closed. She nodded back and watched as he made his way – slowly – up to his house and considered briefly about getting out and forcing him to let her help. Still, she sat there as the house door opened and closed behind him, and she sighed. Her part in this game was done, but she drove away feeling like there was something missing.

The pizzas Ryan ordered were almost ready when she got there, so she sat down at the counter to wait. She would occasionally call in a delivery order for lunch, but truth be told, she liked the excuse to leave the office. Sometimes it helped to take a break and regroup, and that never happened unless she physically removed herself from her computer. As a result, she was a regular at a few of her favorite lunch spots.

This time, though, she didn't know anyone working. Mac rarely picked up pizza for dinner; there was time to cook in the evening, so she tried to take advantage of that. Tonight, the lack of someone familiar to talk to while she waited gave her a chance to go through the emails that had piled up during her time at the hospital. There were a few emails asking if she'd gotten the previous one, which only showed how quickly she normally replied. Still, they'd all have to wait until she was back at work, because Mac really didn't want to get into the habit of replying to business emails during off hours. It didn't matter to her too much if she _did_ work outside of work, but letting other people know (and expect) that wasn't something she wanted.

"Mackenzie?"

Mac looked up. One of the pizza guys was standing in front of her holding a couple boxes that presumably belonged to her. The last time Ryan had ordered pizza, he'd done it under his name, so Mac had to explain that she wasn't _Ryan Mackenzie,_ but she was still a Mackenzie. Apparently, he had forgone the first name completely this time around. She nodded, and handed over cash before taking the pizzas out to her car. She used the seat warmer to help keep them warm, but the drive to her parents' house wasn't very long.

Ryan was watching a movie when she let herself in the front door. He waved lazily but didn't move, so Mac ducked into the kitchen first. Her mom was tossing a salad while her dad squinted at his laptop.

"Hi, honey," he said, looking up. "Perfect timing. I need help."

Mac laughed and set the pizzas on the table. Her father almost always needed help with something when she came home. Once, when it had been a particularly busy couple weeks at work and she hadn't gotten a chance to stop by her parents' house like normal, her dad had given her a list of issues when she finally did show up. Mac wondered for a minute why Ryan couldn't help instead of her – most of them were pretty simple things – but she brushed it off. Walking her dad through some simple technical issues was the least she could do.

"What's up, Dad?"

"Well… I checked my email, and normally I have a list over here," he pointed to an area of his screen. "And it's got like, trash, sent… that kind of thing. Now it's gone. I've clicked all kinds of things and I just can't make them come back."

Mac hid a smile and pointed to a little triangle next to the only inbox label still there. "Click on that," she directed.

Sam did so, and then cheered as the different mailboxes came back. "I guess I clicked everything but that." He grinned at his daughter. "Thanks, kiddo."

This time, Mac didn't try to hide the smile and laughed out loud. "Anytime, Dad. Anytime." She grabbed a couple plates, added pizza and salad, and took them into the living room.

"How do you feel?" she asked Ryan as she handed him one of the plates and sat down.

Her brother shrugged. "Better, I guess. Just tired." He grinned at Mac. "Pizza will help."

Mac grinned back. "So, movie or video games?"

"Movie, for now. Then video games."

Mac nodded and settled in to watch the second half of a movie that both her and Ryan could probably quote word for word. They were joined a few minutes later by their parents, who also brought something to drink for each of them. The Mackenzies didn't often eat in the living room anymore. Natalie had put her foot down when they'd gotten a new couch, but Mac figured that this was a special occasion.

She stayed there for a few hours, playing video games with her brother and then planning Saturday's lunch with her mom after Ryan decided to go to bed. It was pretty late when she finally got home, but just as she let herself in, her phone buzzed with a text from Veronica.

 _'Dad said he'll let me check out Dick's car when we get back. He's not thrilled that the truck left the scene.'_

Mac grinned. She was constantly reminded just how nice it was having Keith as the sheriff again. It kept Veronica out of trouble, for the most part. She had stuck to her promise to not mess things up for her dad, so while she still did PI work, it was either the simple stuff, or it was as a consulting detective with the sheriff's department. Mac knew that Logan was relieved. Many of their issues had come from safety concerns – concerns that neither of them cared too much about when they were the one in danger – so a safe Veronica was a happy Logan.

Veronica also spent her time working for the "get the dirt" website that Mac had suggested back in high school. They both thought it was kind of a fun idea, and now that V didn't have classes, she enjoyed the extra cash. About three months after the website launched, Veronica had shown up in Mac's office in a panic. They had been flooded with requests and she couldn't keep up. Mac set up a waiting list and closed the request link after the 15th of the month, every month. It helped significantly, and Veronica calmed down.

Mac shot a quick text back, basically asking V to keep her in the loop with what she found out. Mac knew she didn't have to ask; Veronica would tell her as soon as she knew. Actually, V would probably ask her to find any trucks in the area, or hack into traffic cameras, or pull information. Mac would be lying if she said she wasn't excited. She had really missed the PI research stuff while Veronica had been gone, because although Mac still ended up doing a few things for her friend, the Stanford Veronica wasn't like the Neptune Veronica. It was a good thing, for the most part, because she didn't have quite the same network of people in Stanford that could get her out of the inevitable jam. Mac was pretty sure that everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Veronica came home in one piece.

Mac considered getting a jump on things and searching for security or traffic cameras in the area of Dick's accident, but yawned before she made it to her computer. Finding the offending truck would have to wait, she decided, and was asleep faster than it would have taken her to figure out which intersection exactly she was looking for.

/ / /

The emails took some time to get through the next morning. There were a few new requests and some questions from current clients, but most were from a tech listserv she subscribed to. As a rule, it offered good news and information, but that meant she basically had to read everything she got. After the third hour of straight email dealings, and the hundredth or so time she reached for her coffee cup only to find it (still) empty, she decided to break for lunch. She'd wrapped up a few slices of pizza the night before, so she heated that up and headed back to her desk, armed with said pizza and a fresh cup of coffee. While she ate, she scanned her desk calendar. Despite her love of all things digital, Mac had a soft spot for paper calendars. It might have had something to do with the fact that she could actually physically circle important days, and then they jumped out at her every time she glanced over. Her next couple days were pretty light – just Saturday with her family and plans Sunday evening to meet up with Wallace for a little while. It was supposed to be fun, just friends hanging out and catching up, but Mac suspected that Wallace had gone ahead and gotten the new computer system he'd been talking about and wanted to get her to set it up. She would, of course, but that didn't mean she was going to make it easy for him.

There was also a little star on the day the following week when Logan and Veronica were set to come back. Mac had marked it because she knew that her best chance to get V to gossip about the trip was right after she came home, and Mac needed to not schedule anything ridiculously important for the couple days after that little star.

Thinking about Logan and Veronica made her think about Dick. Mac figured that instead of straight gossip, their post-trip girls' day might be more of a "figure out who hit Dick" and also gossip, day. Luckily, Mac was pretty sure they could do the first part in their sleep, so that wouldn't be an issue. The issue that was currently at play was her nagging guilt over leaving Dick by himself. Mac was almost annoyed with herself for feeling that way, because she knew he wasn't her responsibility. Regardless of what she told herself, she couldn't shake that little thought that maybe, just maybe, she should go check on him.

Two hours later, it was too much. For the second time in two days, Mac left her office early. She considered leaving her bag behind, not knowing if she'd end up coming back, but in the end decided to take it with her. She'd just work from home if she had time left over in the workday. She made a mental note to read the listserv emails before going to bed this time, because they really got annoying when they piled up after a few days.

She parked in Dick's driveway and paused for a second, steadying herself. She decided that the stars had to be out of whack or something, because for the second time in about twenty-four hours, she was voluntarily helping Dick. Admittedly, it wasn't _as_ strange as it would have been a handful of years earlier; Mac had pretty much learned to deal with the blonde after he moved in with Logan – and then when Logan moved in with him – but they still weren't friends.

That worked great, except for the tiny detail that her actions over the past day were far more friend-like than they were, well, anything else. She'd tried to reason with herself on the drive over that she was doing this for Logan, and Veronica (because she'd have to deal with Logan), but even her own arguments fell flat. Dick was a grown man, even if he didn't always act like it. He could take care of himself.

Still, she'd come this far. Mac sighed and got out of her car. Suddenly, the walk from the car to the door seemed longer than the drive from her office to the beach house had been. She pushed the button to lock the car and less than a minute later, rang the doorbell. There wasn't any immediate sound, but she didn't expect any. It took about a minute before Dick made it to the door, and Mac tried to look as if she hadn't been starting to worry.

"Hey, Mac," Dick said, opening the door. "What's up?" He genuinely looked confused to see her. Unfortunately, he also looked terrible. There were dark circles under his eyes, and the bruises that hadn't been visible the day before were starting to show.

She forced a smile. "Well, you're not in a pile by the stairs, so that's a good thing." He grinned a little bit, and she kept going. "I just wanted to make sure you hadn't died overnight."

"Didn't die," he said with a shrug. "Didn't sleep much though."

Mac eyed him closely. "Have you eaten anything?" He shook his head. Mac sighed. "Can I come in?"

Dick nodded, looking a little surprised but still mostly confused. Mac moved in the direction of the kitchen with Dick following behind her. Apparently, her skepticism about the whole _grown man, can take care of himself_ thing was legitimate. She opened up the refrigerator, bracing herself for the worst.

It wasn't even close to what she had expected. There were all kinds of options, and a check of the freezer proved the same thing. Mac closed the freezer door and turned to look at Dick, who was now sitting at the bar.

"What happened?" she asked, moving towards him so that there was only the kitchen counter space and the bar surface between them. "Why didn't you eat anything?"

Dick shrugged again and rubbed at his eyes. "It seemed like too much trouble. I wasn't hungry last night and then I never really fell asleep…" he trailed off and leaned against the edge of the bar. "And this morning, I figured I'd probably start a fire or something if I tried."

Mac blinked. Either Dick was under the influence of something stronger than the pain medicine they gave him or he was just really tired, but something had to account for his abnormal level of honesty. She was so shocked by it that she didn't even bother to throw a remark back about how there were things in the freezer that would require nothing more than a microwave and a plate. Instead, she gave him a soft smile.

"Do you want me to make you something?"

He looked at her for a long moment before shrugging. "It's not a big deal. I'm not really hungry."

Mac rolled her eyes. "Yeah, okay, fine. Is there anything you would prefer?" She pushed off the counter and crossed the kitchen towards the refrigerator. When he didn't answer, she turned around. "You have to eat something. I don't think you're supposed to take the meds on an empty stomach, and besides, a lack of food is not going to help anything."

Dick shrugged. "I guess something that doesn't require a lot of effort to eat. I think there's spaghetti sauce in the fridge." He crossed his arms on the counter and lowered his head to rest on them. "Logan left it there, but then called the day he left and said it probably wouldn't last until he got back. I think he just said that so I'd eat it instead of ordering out for every meal. He cooks more now that he's back with Ronnie."

Mac nodded and found the spaghetti sauce. Sure enough, it was clearly homemade and certainly not going bad. It took some digging, but eventually, she located a pot and the pasta, and set about making the noodles to go with the sauce. Dick didn't move the entire time she was moving around, and when she leaned against the island to look at him, she realized that he had fallen asleep. He clearly needed it, but she was worried that he'd fall off the tall chair. With a sigh, she circled around to the side of the bar that Dick was sitting and gently touched his arm. He woke up without jumping, which was good, and Mac could see that he looked even worse up close.

"Hey, why don't you go take a nap or something? It'll be a few minutes before this is ready and you'll probably fall asleep."

Dick sighed. "I'll be on the couch," he said before getting up and slowly moving towards the living room. Mac watched him go before shaking her head and going back to the spaghetti.

 **A/N: Okay so I'm drowning in grad school stuff, but I'm going to try to write the next few chapters this weekend so that there isn't as big of a gap as there was this time around. THANK YOU for the reviews on the last two chapters, and I promise that the mystery will start up here soon.**


	4. Chapter 4

Mac let Dick sleep for about twenty minutes while she made the pasta and heated up the spaghetti sauce. It didn't necessarily need that long, but she wanted him to sleep, so she took her time. Finally there wasn't much else she could do, and she went to wake Dick up. He was sprawled out on the couch – his was clearly meant for lounging, being both wider and longer than the standard ones – and looked surprisingly peaceful. Even with the bruises and still-healing cuts, he looked better than he did awake. Mac realized with a jolt that he also looked younger, which threatened to start a fresh onslaught of memories. She shook her head and reached out to touch his shoulder. He jolted awake at the slightest touch, and Mac withdrew her hand quickly. He looked around wildly until his eyes landed on her. Mac watched as he visibly relaxed and gave him a smile.

"Do you want to eat in here or at a table?" she asked softly, ignoring how weird the entire situation should have been.

Dick looked at her for a second before slowly sitting up. "I usually eat at the bar or the table." Mac nodded and went back to the kitchen to put the spaghetti in a bowl. It was something that Dick could probably manage, but she figured that, just this once, she'd baby him a little.

Dick chose the table, so Mac sat a couple seats away from him after passing him the bowl of spaghetti and a glass of water. When he looked at her questioningly, she shrugged.

"You need to stay hydrated. Water is a good option."

Dick nodded slowly. "Are you eating, too?"

Mac almost laughed, but just shook her head instead. "No, I ate lunch at work. Besides, I'm a vegetarian, and that's meat sauce."

Dick looked down and back up at her. "So you…" he shook his head. "Wow."

It was Mac's turn to be confused. "What?"

"I don't mean this rudely or anything, but why are you here?"

Mac laughed. "I'm here because I wanted to make sure you could take care of yourself, which you obviously _can't_ ," she said with a grin. "And I wanted to ask you a couple questions about the wreck."

Dick raised his eyebrows. "Ronnie's already got you on the case?" His tone was joking, but Mac shrugged.

"It's inevitable. Keith's going to let her look at the jeep. Hopefully we'll be able to get paint or something from the truck that hit you."

Dick paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. "Wait, she's seriously looking into it? _You're_ looking into it?" Mac raised her own eyebrows and nodded. "Wow."

"What now?"

He took a bite and chewed while she waited for a reply. "It's just," Dick started. "I guess I didn't really think you were serious about Ronnie trying to catch the guy. It was just a hit and run. It's not that big of a deal. It's not like I'm dead or anything."

Mac gaped at him. "It doesn't matter. I mean," she rolled her eyes. "We're glad you're not dead, so of course that matters, but it doesn't matter in the decision to find the person. It's against the law to leave the scene of a crime. If you _had_ been badly injured, they would have been leaving you to die. Whoever hit you couldn't have known you were okay before they drove off." She paused for a second. "Unless they did? Tell me what happened."

Dick swallowed and frowned. "Okay. It was Tuesday, so I was going to the office. I guess it was almost nine? I don't really know exactly. I show up about then." Around another mouthful, he continued. "I was on Lincoln and had the light coming up to it, so I didn't have to slow down. The truck just came out of nowhere and got me right in the door." He shrugged. "That's pretty much all I know. I just barely saw it before it hit me, and then the Liberty flipped, I flew around, and didn't see much until everything stopped moving. The jeep was back on the wheels but I couldn't get up to try the door. Some lady had stopped in the intersection by then and was on the phone with 911."

Mac stared at him. "What do you mean, you flew around?" She felt her eyes get wide. "Dick, were you wearing a seatbelt?"

He shrugged. "I was, but it didn't do much to keep me in my seat. The airbag kind of helped, but I definitely hit the roof at some point. I ended up over the front console. I could reach the passenger's side door but it wouldn't budge. They ended up using a crowbar or something to get the doors open."

Mac shook her head. Something didn't add up. "So you're saying that you _did_ have your seatbelt on and it… what, didn't work?"

Dick shrugged again and looked down. "I'm just telling you what happened."

Mac looked at him as he spun the noodles around his fork. It was sometimes hard for her to separate the boy that had taunted her for liking his brother from the boy that ended up alone, abandoned by all the people that were supposed to care about him. She felt a little guilty for sounding like she didn't believe him.

"That's what we need. If the seatbelt didn't work, there's a bigger problem than just a simple hit and run." Mac tried to keep her voice level as she thought. She needed to tell Veronica about the seatbelt before V checked out Dick's car, but she couldn't tell her just yet. Veronica would insist on grilling Dick on whether he was sure he was wearing the seatbelt, and she'd just figured out the hard way that going about it that way wasn't going to work.

"I don't know what happened. It's been years since I didn't wear a seatbelt," Dick said quietly. He sounded tired again. "I don't have a death wish."

Mac softened. "Hey," she said, pausing until he looked up. "I believe you. Just one more thing." Dick nodded, so she continued. "What was the cross street of the intersection?"

Dick's brow furrowed in thought. "Hartford?" he said eventually. "I think that's the one. I don't really pay attention to every street sign." He shrugged. "Wouldn't it be in the police report?"

Mac grinned. "I didn't want to wait that long. Finish your spaghetti. You need sleep." She stood up and headed towards the door.

"Are you…" Dick called, but stopped himself. Mac grinned as she turned around.

"I'm just going to get my laptop. Eat," Mac ordered before doing as she said and retrieving her laptop from her car. Dick hadn't moved when she got back, but he had kept eating. He eyed her quizzically as she sat down.

"I'm going to try to find the 911 call," she said, answering his unasked question. "And yes, Keith would have it, but I'm not totally sure if he can let me listen to that since it's part of an ongoing investigation, so I'm not going to ask."

Dick blinked. "Uh… you can do that?"

Mac gave him a look before turning back to her computer. "You're not actually asking me that, are you?" When he didn't answer, she looked back at him. He was staring at her. "Oh, you are. Yes, I can definitely get into the Balboa County system and get the 911 calls. It's not hard, and besides, I've done it before."

"You have?" Mac nodded. "Why?" Dick sounded somewhere between curious and incredulous.

She sighed. "Mostly for cases. Sometimes Veronica wants to hear what someone said the first time around." She shrugged. "I don't do it as much anymore, since Keith has access to them, and if Veronica's working on a real case, she's doing it with the department, not on her own. I can only get the ones that are still on the system. High profile cases are usually saved as a hard copy, but sometimes they leave them on the system as sort of a backup until it automatically archives the whole month and then deletes from the main system. That one's harder to get into and takes forever to find something." She shrugged. "I'm pretty sure Keith knows I've done it, but he hasn't changed the security or anything…" she trailed off and grinned. "Though now that I think about it, I'd probably be the one he called to do that, so it doesn't really matter. Besides, 911 calls are public record in California now, so I could still get them, I'd just have to make a request. That takes longer, and they can't give me any that have personal information. Since I don't usually know what was said when I'm starting out, I can never be sure if my call will be excluded. _And_ leaving a paper trail isn't exactly a good idea either."

Dick shook his head and looked down at his almost empty bowl. "Is it weird?"

"Is what weird?"

"Hearing the phone calls. I mean, do you have to listen to a lot of them to find the one you need or is there a labeling system?"

Mac glanced back at him. "I usually can get the right day, but if I don't know the time, I have to listen to each one until I find it. Even if I do know the time, it only narrows it down to one hour, which still might mean a lot of calls. I just plug my headphones in and skip them once I'm sure it's not the call I'm looking for." She paused for a second. "It's not really weird anymore. It was at first. 911 calls aren't fun. I mean, they still aren't, but I've gotten better at figuring out exactly what I'm looking for and if it really gets too much, I'll hand it over to Veronica and make her listen for a while."

"Ronnie does it, too?"

Mac gave a half laugh. "I don't know why you sound so surprised. One, it's Veronica. Of course she does. Two, she did it first."

Dick looked confused. "She did? She can hack?"

Mac squinted at him. "No… if she could hack, she wouldn't need me. She got the tape from the evidence room at the Sheriff's department. Besides," Mac shook her head. "I wouldn't have been able to get it anyway. Not easily, at least. By then, all the stuff relating to Lilly's case was long gone, tucked somewhere into the archives by that point. It probably hadn't been deleted yet, but it would have taken a long time."

Dick sat frozen in his chair. "Wait," he said slowly. "Did she listen to the one that called in Lilly's death?"

Mac shook her head hard. "I don't think so. She was with her dad that night, so she heard about it on his radio. Besides, I'm pretty sure they were discrete when calling it in, unlike…" She stopped herself and shook her head again. "No, V was trying to find the tip that led the police to the guy they ended up arresting. She was sure he didn't do it and wanted to see who pointed them in his direction." With a shrug, she continued. "When she found it, she came to me to try to undo the voice-alteration. It worked, and it all ended well enough, but Veronica had to listen to all the recordings from that tape before she found it."

Dick frowned. "Does Logan know that?"

Mac shrugged. "I'm not really sure. Maybe? I'm pretty sure that he knows how she found out who made the call, especially after everything, but I really don't know how much he knows for sure." She looked at him. "Why?"

It was Dick's turn to shrug. "He'd probably worry about her hearing something she wasn't supposed to."

Mac laughed. "It was so long ago, and she definitely wasn't supposed to hear it. She survived. Barely, but still. And that wasn't a direct result of hearing the call."

Dick looked uncomfortable. "Is it worth it, then? There can't be anything on the call from the wreck that would be that important…"

Mac sighed, this time out of exasperation. "I'm hoping that the woman caught some of the license plate number or a description or something. Or that _someone_ did, even if they didn't stick around the intersection."

Dick nodded slowly, still looking pained, and Mac realized that she wasn't going to get anything done there. She closed her laptop and looked at Dick, who was staring back with a confused expression on his face. She hid a smile when she realized that it was basically a more exaggerated version of his usual expression.

"I'm just going to deal with it at home. If you're finished, I'll clean up so the dishes don't have to sit there until your housekeeper comes in." She held her hand out for the empty bowl.

Dick looked down. "Yeah, I'm done, but you don't have to clean up…"

Mac rolled her eyes. "It's really not that big of a deal. It's like four dishes."

He gave her a look but handed her the bowl anyway. "Uh, thanks…"

Mac nodded, unsure exactly why she was so set on not leaving a mess. It probably had something to do with the guilt of leaving them for someone else to take care of, but also because it kind of felt like she was only halfway helping. Besides, there was something cool about being in the beach house. She and Veronica had once made dozens of cookies for Logan's birthday in that kitchen, claiming that it was easier to make them there instead of having to transport them from either her place or Veronica's. It was, but they really just wanted to play around in the fancy kitchen. Mac was glad that Logan cooked, because it would pretty much go to waste if Dick lived here by himself.

When she finished cleaning up, she checked the freezer again, moving the things that could be heated up in the microwave closer to the front. She did the same thing with the refrigerator, and then went to find Dick. He was back on the couch, staring blankly at the TV. She stopped at the foot of the couch.

"You really should try to sleep," she said, getting his attention.

"I don't want to go back upstairs," he replied. Mac sighed.

"Come on, I'll help you."

/ / /

Mac went home after helping Dick up the stairs, which was really more like walking slowly up the stairs with him instead of actually helping. She hovered just long enough for him to get to his bedroom before ducking out, knowing that he didn't need her help beyond that. She left a note on the kitchen island with her phone number and instructions to the housekeeper to call her if something happened to Dick. It kept her from wondering if something had happened to him, which wasn't really a feeling she was used to.

She tried to focus as she made herself a cup of tea and sat down at her desk. She'd been listening to 911 calls since she got home, and there wasn't anything so far. Since she knew that Dick's accident had been towards the end of the hour, she had a little bit of an advantage, but she didn't want to miss it because she started looking too late. While phone calls played in her ears, she started the process of getting into the system that held the data from traffic cameras. It wasn't her first time getting something from the system, but it had been a while.

As she typed, she occasionally hit the button to skip the rest of the call. Not long after she started typing, she heard a call that obviously came from outside. She paused her typing and listened.

 _"Oh my God, there was an accident… um… the intersection of Lincoln and Hartford. It just happened."_

 _"Were you involved in the accident?"_

 _"No! No, I'm fine. I just got to the intersection as the car was flipping over. It's upright now but I can't see the driver."_

 _"Ma'am, we'll send someone right away. What about the other vehicle?"_

 _"It was a truck, a big one, and all black. It just drove off!"_

The conversation didn't hold anything else interesting, so Mac stopped listening and copied the sound clip to a flash drive. Just as it was finished saving, the next call started playing.

 _"911, what is the location of your emergency?"_

 _"Intersection of Lincoln and Hartford. I saw a woman on the phone, so she's probably reporting the same accident. Just listen to me for a second. The truck was solid black, no chrome on it anywhere besides the tires. It had what looked like a brush guard on the front. The windows were tinted so you couldn't see inside, and there was mud all over the license plates. Both of them. I saw the truck hit the Liberty; I got to the stoplight just in time for that. I don't know where that truck came from, but it could have easily avoided the jeep, and it didn't._

Mac sat staring at her computer, a chill running down her spine. The call ended there; the caller must have hung up. She realized that the next recording was playing, but it wasn't about the accident. She hit the pause button and copied the second file to her drive. She took a few minutes to listen to the next several messages, but there was nothing else relating to Dick's accident. She tried to push the call out of her mind by returning to traffic cameras. It took about ten minutes, but finally the screen changed.

She was in. Mac sat back in her chair and let out a breath. Getting into the system wasn't actually the hard part; that would be finding the wreck. She clicked over to the camera map and zoomed in on the area that Dick would have been in. She found Lincoln and Hartford, the street name that Dick guessed and the 911 callers confirmed. However, that was the extent of her luck. The only camera there was a red light camera, which meant no video footage. She clicked backwards through the folders until she found the eight o'clock hour for Tuesday. Since the cameras only took a snapshot if there was movement in the intersection during the three-second gap of four-way reds, she didn't have a picture of the actual impact. There was one of the aftermath of the wreck, but there wasn't a truck in the picture. Dick's car was upright, so Mac assumed that the green light had lasted long enough for the truck to get away.

She stared at her computer screen for a second. Dick had said that the truck came out of nowhere, but that wasn't possible. It had to be coming from somewhere. She first checked the traffic camera photo from right before the one of Dick's accident, and found just the very edge of what could have been a brush guard. That didn't line up, though, because if the truck was stopped for that photo, it wouldn't have had a reason to just decide to run the red light _after_ stopping for it.

She pulled the map back up and found the intersection and the direction the truck came from. Using her mouse as a pointer, she moved backwards, trying to track the logical path that got the truck to the intersection. Mac frowned when the first intersection she came to didn't even have a red light camera. The one before that did, but it was labeled as "for show only". Mac checked a couple different ways that the truck could have gotten to the final destination before a bad feeling started to settle in the pit of her stomach. Only a few intersections along the way had cameras, and only one of them was an actual video stream. She tried to be rational; that was a little bit more of a residential area, so they hadn't put traffic cameras up in that area yet. There were also a considerable number of stop sign only intersections, which wouldn't have cameras. She went back to the intersection and traced the possible movements of the truck after the accident. There were a couple routes that she might have luck with, so those camera numbers got written down. She'd check them out next. The farther out she got from the accident site, the more she was guessing on where the truck might have gone. There was really only one way to do it.

She'd just have to check all the cameras until she found the truck.

 **A/N: I did get some writing done over the weekend, but it was for a later chapter. The next one should be out sometime this week. Big hugs to all of you!**


	5. Chapter 5

**(A/N: This chapter gave me hell. There's a part in here where Mac looks into Dick's company. If you get confused or want to know more about WHY I did things the way I did, skip down to the note at the bottom. If you still have issues with it or questions, leave a review and we'll talk about it!)**

Following the truck away from the accident proved easier than tracing it to the intersection, but not by much. It took hours – the sky had gotten dark without her noticing – and required hacking into security cameras along possible routes, but Mac managed to trace the truck all the way to the freeway. She rolled her head back, trying to alleviate the stiffness that had settled in her neck and shoulders both from the tension and stress of hunting, and from the position in which she'd been sitting. Mac thought about following the truck even more, but she knew from experience that there was a huge camera gap just out of town with several exits along the way. It was frustrating, to say the least, but it only added weight to the theory posed by the second – and unfortunately anonymous – caller: this was intentional. She had hoped that the truck in question would stop somewhere – a house, a body shop, even a bar – and give her an idea of who might be behind it.

She sighed and ran a hand over her face. She didn't even know what _it_ was. So far, the truck's only crime was a hit and run, and while that was still illegal, it wasn't something investigators would fall over each other trying to solve. Even Keith could only put so much manpower behind finding the guy – or girl, she rationalized, because Dick was probably hated by plenty of crazy women. She only hoped that tracing the truck _to_ the intersection would be more enlightening. She'd deal with that part in the morning.

It was his comment about the seatbelt that had her really concerned. Dick's jeep wasn't brand-new or anything, but it certainly wasn't old enough to have malfunctioning seatbelts. A quick Google search confirmed that there weren't reports of seatbelt issues or recalls for any year of the Jeep Liberty. That suggested either a freak accident or deliberate tampering of some kind. Mac instantly dismissed the idea that this was an accident. Nothing in Neptune happened accidentally. Veronica had started saying that years ago, and Mac had only become more convinced of it as time went on.

Mac flipped to a new page in the notebook she was using to track the truck's route and started jotting down notes. Like with her calendar, she'd always loved electronic notes and reminders, but after college, she'd started using sticky notes and pieces of paper stuck to a bulletin board to keep her thoughts in order. She still used her computer for these things, of course, but sometimes it helped to have everything in a physical form that she could move around. Her current list was of questions she needed answers for, or questions she'd already answered but felt were too important to leave in her mind, like the intersection and the description of the truck. She took a minute and printed out a map of the area, putting a red X over the intersection of the accident. With the same red pen, she put a dot over all the cameras that had recorded the truck, and then drew a line down the streets the truck took. It looked like a combination of a connect-the-dots drawing, and one of those "find the way out" mazes that little kids did.

Mac's next note simply read ' _seatbelt?'_ with a blank line beneath it for the answer she hoped she'd find. She thought about it for a moment before adding the next note, _who had access to Dick's jeep?_ – and the companion question: _when did he last drive it prior to Tuesday morning?_ Theoretically, the seatbelt could have been screwed up for a while and just gone unnoticed until the wreck. She made a mental note to get Veronica to let her come with when she went to look at Dick's car.

Mac stared at her paper for a minute longer before something dawned on her. Dick had said that he was heading to 'the office'. It had taken her a while, but she now realized that she didn't actually know where he worked. In the years of their tentative friendship (a term that she used loosely in this situation; acquaintanceship would be more appropriate), it hadn't come up. She knew he worked, but only because she'd gone to his house after work once to help Logan with something, and Dick was just walking in himself, removing his sports coat as he went. At the time, Mac was too stunned by the realization that he actually had a job to question what it was, and afterwards, she cared so little that she forgot about it. Now, it was suddenly important.

Twenty minutes and a few Google searches later, Mac was fuming. It hadn't taken any time at all for her to find the website for his company. She wasn't really surprised that he owned a company that managed real estate; it was probably the least imaginative thing ever, but it was apparently engrained in the Casablancas' DNA. The surprise was that he actually seemed to be doing okay. _That wasn't fair_ , she admitted to herself. _He's doing really well._ His company wasn't a REIT like his dad's company, nor was it a land trust like Cassidy's. From what Mac could tell, it was a company that bought and renovated everything from houses to hotels. Sometimes the company would keep them – manage the hotels and apartments like normal and either rent the houses out long-term or use them as vacation rentals – and sometimes they'd sell the properties outright. It appeared that Dick had mostly started the company from the ground up. The SEC had seized the assets of Casablancas Enterprises to help settle with the people Big Dick had ripped off, so Dick didn't get to piggy back off of the things his father already owned. Mac knew that Dick had basically excommunicated the man after he got out of jail, refusing to invest in anything Richard Senior approached him with. She remembered a couple years ago, when it came out that Logan now owned Phoenix Land trust – a discovery that shocked everyone, including Logan himself – and she remembered Dick buying it from his friend. It made sense now, knowing that he actually had a use for the properties.

The thing Mac was furious about was the actual website. It wasn't one she had made, which quite frankly, pissed her off a little bit. She couldn't believe that he had gotten someone _else_ to design a website for his company. It's not like they were the best of friends or anything, but it's not like he had any other web developer friends… especially not ones highly recommended by his best friend and housemate.

She closed her laptop with a little more force than necessary and stormed into the kitchen. She hadn't eaten since lunch, and it was well past dinnertime. If she was honest with herself, that was probably more than a small factor in her current agitation, but it was so much easier to just direct it all at Dick. It was a small comfort to know that she could design a better website than the one he currently had, but it didn't really do much to lessen the annoyance.

Mac huffed and grumbled to herself while she made dinner. She'd spent part of the previous weekend trying new recipes, planning on using the leftovers for lunch over the week, but her plans had been thrown off by the events of the past couple days. That left her with extra pre-made meals, which was great since she really wasn't in the mood to spend a bunch of time cooking. She stuck a few vegetarian enchiladas in the oven to heat up properly and busied herself with making guacamole as a side dish. It wasn't long before everything was ready, and Mac made a mental note to do that more often, especially since she'd only get busier when Veronica came back and jumped into investigating. Mac had checked the mail on her way into the house, so she took a break from the computer to flip through a new techie magazine while she ate. By the time she was finished eating, she was less angry and had a much clearer mind.

She added a note to her list to talk to Dick about his company. It wouldn't be a stretch to think that maybe he had pissed someone off in the course of doing business. It would be a place to start, at least. Considering they knew very little about the accident – and only suspected that maybe it wasn't an accident – she couldn't comfortably rule anything out. Mac sighed as she sat back down in front of her computer. She wasn't used to investigating anything without Veronica's help. It just wasn't her thing. As it was, she had pretty much reached the end of the list of things she could do without the blonde's input. Since she really didn't want to look through any more traffic cameras at the moment, Mac settled on skimming through her work emails for an hour or so before making her way to bed.

/ / /

Her alarm went off far too early the next morning, and Mac almost shut it off before seeing that it wasn't actually an alarm, it was a reminder for her dentist appointment. Months ago, she had scheduled it early in the day so that she could just go to work afterwards instead of having to leave the office and then go back. After the past couple days of minimal work, she knew that she'd definitely have to stay at the office for a while.

Once she got to the dentist's office, she flipped through her phone's calendar. Veronica and Logan were coming back on Sunday, but probably later in the day (according to V), and Mac still had her Tuesday conference call. Other than that, her next week was free from immediate deadlines. Sure, she'd still have to do _something_ , or risk falling behind, but it wouldn't hurt to spend some quality time with her BFF. And by _some_ , Mac meant _as much as possible_. Veronica had been back in Neptune for a couple years, but Mac didn't see the blonde as much as she'd like to. She wasn't alone in that; Wallace agreed wholeheartedly that they needed more Veronica time. Mac wondered fleetingly if they would be able to get V to join her and Wallace on Sunday, but her name was called before she got a chance to do anything about it.

After the appointment, where the hygienist talked her ear off about online shopping and the upcoming beach weather, Mac swung by the Hutt and called Wallace while she waited for her coffee.

"Hey Mac," Wallace answered. "Don't you dare cancel on me for Sunday."

Mac laughed. "I'm not cancelling! I was thinking that maybe we should call V and see if she wants to join us. They'll be back at some point, and it's not like she'll be going through Logan withdrawals any time soon."

It was Wallace's turn to laugh. "Echolls _is_ her drug of choice. Yeah, we'll invite her and stock up on ice cream, just in case."

The barista called out her name, and Mac took her coffee with a smile and moved the phone away from her mouth. "Thanks!" she said, turning to leave. To Wallace, she asked, "want me to call her?"

"Better you than me," he said, and Mac could hear the grin in his voice. "No way am I interrupting those two."

Mac shrugged, despite the fact that he couldn't see her. "I've already had to, so I'm fine with it."

"Wait, you've talked to V? Something was that important?" Wallace sounded amazed, and Mac couldn't help but laugh.

"Yeah, actually. Dick ended up in the hospital after a car accident, and before you ask," Mac said, knowing what would come next. "I know that because Ryan was also in the hospital and the two ended up on the same floor."

Wallace was silent for a second before commenting. "Hmm. I guess that is something Logan would want to know about. Is he okay?"

"Who, Dick?" Mac questioned as she opened her car door. At Wallace's affirmation, she sighed. "Yeah, he's alright. Broken ribs, whiplash, some bruising. He'll live. I'm about to head to work, so I'll talk to you later. Keep your fingers crossed that Veronica joins us on Sunday." She elected not to clue her friend in on the suspicious nature of the accident. Wallace was on Logan's side when it came to either of the women doing serious investigative stuff. Mac suspected that after the whole mess with the Castle during their freshman year of college, Wallace was less accepting of Veronica's spy habits when they went beyond catching cheating husbands.

The thing about the Castle issue, Mac thought as she navigated her bug out of the parking lot, was that it ended. After she and Veronica had gotten into the hard drive, and V had told Jake Kane just enough information to prove that she really did know what it contained, the man had issued a warning to all the members that no one was to go after the blonde or her friends. That warning explicitly included not only Mac, Wallace, and Keith, but also Logan, Piz, Parker, and Dick. It implicitly included basically any of Veronica's friends, ever. Mac knew that Jake Kane was smart, and she knew that _he_ knew what V was capable of. If she really thought about it, Mac would guess that Jake Kane knew that Veronica was the reason his daughter's killer was in jail and that his granddaughter was far away from her abusive maternal grandparents (and that his son hadn't gotten arrested in the process). Mac figured that Veronica was in the man's debt, even if neither of them really wanted to think about or acknowledge that. She could only imagine that Jake Kane wanted Veronica as far away from the Castle as possible, not only for their safety but also for hers, and she imagined that he knew it wouldn't happen if any of her friends got involved.

In the end, it meant that Logan had nothing to fear from Gory Sorokin, and other than a few dirty looks, the two had zero interaction after their fight. Despite that, it did nothing to lessen the protectiveness of the men in their lives… and she was pretty sure that Wallace didn't even know every detail. She was also pretty sure that no one besides her and Veronica knew that both girls still had a copy of the information on that hard drive. It was for protection, Veronica had told her, and Mac agreed, and they left it at that.

All thoughts of the Castle and overprotective friends left her mind when she got to the office. Someone had hit a pole and the power was out, which meant the Internet was out. Mac gently banged her head against the wall as her secretary freaked out over the paperwork she'd been in the middle of when the power cut out. After a couple minutes, she opted to do what some of her employees had done and head to a coffee shop. It wasn't ideal, but it worked for the next several hours until she got the phone call that the power was back.

Mac ended up staying later than usual. She caught up on things that had been neglected the past couple days and did as much as she could to make the next week easier. As people left for the day, she was able to focus even more and hours passed without her noticing. It was close to ten o'clock when she finally locked her door and waved goodbye to the building's nighttime security staff.

/

Mac woke up to her phone ringing. It took her a minute to place the noise, and by the time she had, it had stopped. She didn't even bother checking it before rolling over and snuggling into the blankets in an attempt to fall asleep. Moments later, the ringing started up again, and Mac opened her eyes. The light coming in around the curtains indicated that it was just barely daylight outside, and she groaned before reaching for her phone. She answered without checking the number in favor of closing her eyes again.

"Hello?" she mumbled into the phone.

"Mac?"

"Mmm-hmm." She tried to place the voice, but his next words made that unnecessary.

"It's Dick. I… um, your number was still on the counter so I called…" he didn't seem to be very awake yet either, and Mac wondered when he'd get to the part about _why_ he called. Clearly, if he was able to speak, he hadn't fallen down the stairs or injured himself to the point of needing help. He didn't sound like he was in pain, anyway.

"Yeah, I got that much," she prompted when he didn't say anything else.

"I got, uh, a message this morning. Like, just now." Dick seemed hesitant.

"A message? Like a voicemail?" Mac used the hand that wasn't holding her phone to rub her eyes.

"No, it, um…" Dick trailed off, and Mac thought that he sounded almost… scared? Surely that wasn't right. "Someone spray painted a message on the front lawn. They rang the doorbell for like five minutes but were gone by the time I got down here."

Mac froze, both eyes open now. "What does the message say?"

" _Less luck next time_."

 **(A/N: Okay, y'all, bear with me here. I got my bachelor's degree in finance and accounting, and I'm 75 days away from my master's degree in business. I'm Type A and therefore incapable of not being as accurate as possible when I can. The show only touched on what happened to both Casablancas Enterprises and Phoenix Land Trust. I took some liberties here, so we're working under the assumption that when Aaron bought into PLT in exchange for Kendall placing evidence against Duncan, he actually got partial ownership. When Cassidy died, his "ownership" (aka investment, aka equity) in the company went to Kendall. When Aaron was killed, HIS ownership in the company went to Logan, along with the rest of the estate. When Kendall fled, she withdrew Cassidy's equity in the company, but not Aaron's, and then she was killed also. That left LOGAN as the sole owner of PLT, but since he wasn't initially aware that Aaron had even invested in the company, he didn't know about that, and the assets that didn't get sold just sat there. It came out a few years later when Logan went to start his own company (which will show up in a later chapter!). Dick's fledgling company bought the remainder of PLT from Logan, thereby dissolving his brother's old company and acquiring the remaining properties. Can everyone work with that? Admittedly, it doesn't really matter, but I wanted to get it straight in my head and figured I'd share.**

 **Also, my name IRL is Cassidy, so Word keeps suggesting my first and last name every time I type it. Shh, macbook, wrong Cassidy.)**


	6. Chapter 6

**(A/N: After a week of coughing my lungs up and losing my voice – which is a WEIRD thing to experience, my goodness – I'm back!)**

" _Less_ luck next time?" Mac sat up slowly. "I'm pretty sure that's not how that phrase is supposed to go."

"Yeah."

"Did you call the police?" She was working hard to keep her tone in check as her sleepy mind tried to process what it meant.

"No."

Mac swung her legs off the bed. "Give me a ten minute head start and then do that. Veronica will want pictures of her own, and I don't want them to beat me there."

Dick mumbled an _okay_ and she hung up, hurrying to get ready. She brushed her teeth and washed her face before slipping on a pair of capris and a t-shirt, because it never failed that if she was short on time, she'd get either water or toothpaste on her clothes and have to change. She didn't live too far from Dick, but that didn't mean she had time to waste if she wanted to get there first. She quickly ran a brush through her hair and grabbed her phone before making her way towards the front of the house where she had kicked off her converse the last time she wore them. She considered both breakfast and coffee as she put her shoes on, but a quick glance at the clock sent her out the door without either.

Her mind worked overtime as she drove. She'd been leaning towards the idea that the wreck was intentional, but this pretty much cemented that theory. Sure, she reasoned with herself, this could just be a stupid prank done by someone that heard about the accident and doesn't like Dick. It could be totally unrelated.

Mac didn't believe that for a moment. It came back to the thing about Neptune and coincidences. They just didn't go together.

She parked in Dick's driveway and got out of her car. The cops hadn't shown up yet, so she used the sidewalk to get to the front door instead of crossing the lawn. The words were written facing the house; Dick could look out his front windows and see them properly. She was still standing there, facing the yard with her hands on her hips, when the front door opened behind her.

"At least they didn't spray the concrete," Dick said, coming to stand next to her. She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "You know, grass grows. It'll be gone the next time it gets mowed. The concrete would take a little more effort."

Mac looked back at the yard and shrugged. "Silver lining, I guess."

"I called the sheriff's department. If you want the pictures for Ronnie, you'd better take them before they get here." He turned to go back inside, calling over his shoulder, "I've got a fresh pot of coffee inside when you're done."

Mac turned to look at him, but he didn't look back. She shook her head slowly and lifted her camera to her eye. She didn't really know what Veronica would want; V usually took the pictures and Mac just got them afterwards, if she needed them. She figured she'd get the basics and an up-close shot of the paint on the grass, and Veronica could get whatever else she needed from her dad later. Mac snapped a couple shots with her cell phone to send to V at a decent hour of the morning, and then walked around the perimeter of the yard. She didn't see any footprints or dents in the grass where someone might have stood. She scanned the street by the curb, hoping for an oil spot or _something_ to indicate that a vehicle had idled there… but again, nothing. Mac sighed in frustration. She turned to look at the house for a moment before using her camera to snap a picture of the front from her current vantage point, figuring it might be useful to see Dick's house without physically having to be there.

She had just reached the front door when a police cruiser parked in front of the house. Mac lifted a hand in greeting, but didn't stop her forward motion.

"Hey," she said, joining Dick in the kitchen. "The cops are here."

He nodded and handed her a mug before leaving the room, presumably to go talk to the police officers. She poured her coffee, fixed it as closely to the way she liked it as she could, and leaned against the counter, holding the mug with both hands. The sun was a little bit higher in the sky now, but the view out Dick's back windows was still mostly in the shade. She realized that the view at sunset was probably beautiful, full of pinks and oranges, and the sun slowly dipping down towards the ocean…

Mac shook her head. This is what happened when she didn't get enough sleep. She sipped her coffee for a few more moments before taking it back to the front of the house. Dick was talking to one of the officers while the other took pictures similar to those Mac had already taken. She stood there just watching, out of the way and not close enough to hear exactly what anyone was saying. She recognized both of the officers from her trips to the sheriff's office, but not well enough to remember their names. She figured that it was probably the end of the night shift, which was usually assigned to newer officers. Keith was pretty fair for the most part, but some things were still done by seniority, and that was one. Mac was actually slightly glad that Keith hadn't shown up himself; she liked the man, of course, but she wasn't quite ready to talk to him about the whole thing. She always preferred to talk to Veronica about cases first, just in case something came up that the blonde didn't want to share right away.

Mac sighed and looked down into her almost empty mug. During Veronica's time at Stanford, Mac had occasionally helped Keith with the tech side of investigating – especially in the beginning, when he was still weeding out the corruption and needed someone he could trust. It had been so weird – not in a bad way, but weird nevertheless – to work with her best friend's dad instead of her. It was all more official, which was somewhat odd considering she occasionally did light hacking, but it lacked the element of secrecy that had accompanied Veronica's brand of sleuthing. It surprised her even more when she realized that she missed it.

"Hey," Dick said, startling her out of her thoughts as he appeared by her side. "The cops said they'd talk to the neighbors, but I kind of doubt anyone will know much. The people around here aren't super early risers, and if they are, they don't really look out the front windows." He shrugged. "I don't, so it's not that weird. The sunlight is really kind of annoying first thing in the morning, so lots of people keep the shades closed on that side of the house."

Mac nodded slowly. She had positioned herself in a patch of shade, but she could tell that the sun was hitting the front windows at a harsh angle. It was a shame, really, but she hadn't expected a break in the case. Whoever was behind this was either really lucky or really careful.

"Done?" Dick asked suddenly, and Mac looked up at him. He pointed to her coffee mug, which was, in fact, empty. She nodded, and he held his free hand out for it. She handed it over, and he took both mugs inside. He wasn't gone for very long, and when he came back, he stood next to her without saying anything. Mac's stomach took that moment to loudly protest her decision to leave the house without eating breakfast. Dick looked at her and grinned.

"Hungry?"

Mac shrugged. "Apparently so. I hadn't really thought about it." She didn't tell him that at work, she occasionally had to set an alarm to make sure she took a break to eat. It wasn't like she _wanted_ to skip a meal; she just got caught up in something and everything else faded into the background.

"Yeah, same here." Dick matched her shrug and then winced in pain.

Mac looked at him for a moment. "You probably need to eat something before you take a pain pill…"

"Want to go get breakfast?" The question came before Mac had finished her sentence, and she stared at the man for a moment. He was fidgeting with the pocket on his jeans, and if Mac didn't know better, she'd think he was nervous. "I mean, I'm hungry, you're hungry, I don't want to cook, and you came over to help with this," he said, indicating the front lawn. "So, breakfast? My treat? I already asked and the cops don't need me for anything else."

Mac blinked, but nodded anyway. "Yeah, sure."

"There's a beachfront diner basically around the corner." He still wasn't exactly looking at her, but Mac smiled.

"Okay, that sounds good."

Dick told the cops that they were leaving while Mac started towards her car. She'd made it to the driver's door when Dick turned towards her. When he slid somewhat awkwardly into the little car, he glanced at her.

"I can drive, you know."

Mac bit her lip. "I know," she replied, debating with herself on how much to tell him before she talked to Veronica. "Your car is in the garage though, so this is easier." It was the truth, she reminded herself. It might not have been the _whole_ truth, but it was good enough for now.

The drive to the diner was short – it was almost _literally_ around the corner. It crossed Mac's mind as she pulled into the parking lot that they probably could have walked there if Dick wasn't moving slowly. Dick unknowingly confirmed it a second later.

"Sometimes when Logan and I go surfing, we'll come here before heading home. We can sit on the patio and no one really cares that we're in wetsuits… and then we just walk home." He reached for the door handle and paused. "I'm not totally sure why I just told you that."

Mac stayed quiet. It sounded like the last part was more of a thought spoken aloud instead of something actually waiting a reply. Sure enough, she saw him shake his head before opening the door. She followed suit and joined him by the back of the car. He looked at her and she nodded towards the building.

"I'm following you," she said before raising her eyebrows. "Wow, that's something I never thought I'd say."

A look crossed his face that Mac couldn't identify, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by a wink. "First time for everything," he commented before starting towards the diner. Mac rolled her eyes and followed him.

The inside of the diner was pretty much what Mac had expected – well lit with mostly natural light, hardwood floors, booths around the walls and tables in the middle. Surfboards lined the walls, mixed in with large photos of surfers actually surfing. A glance upwards showed several giant fans spinning lazily, with exposed wooden rafters above that. There were a few of the cool round life savers up there too – not hanging, just like… stuck to the angled roof.

"Mac?" Dick said, and she jerked her head down to meet his eyes. He was staring at her with one eyebrow raised and a smug expression on his face. "Someone got distracted."

Mac shrugged and tried to fight the blush rising to her cheeks. "I've never been here before."

He grinned. "It's safer to look around once you're sitting down," he said, nodding towards the far side of the diner. "Inside or out?"

Mac just looked at him. "Inside by the windows over there?" It seemed like the best choice, being still inside but also getting a view of the ocean beyond the patio area.

Dick nodded and started in that direction. Mac looked around quickly, making sure that there wasn't a sign telling them to wait to be seated. After a second, she followed Dick, realizing that a beachfront diner probably didn't need a hostess this early in the morning. Or, maybe not at all, but she was pretty sure that it would get crowded in here at some point. Mac shook her head, giving up trying to figure out the logistics of something so foreign to her.

He slid into a booth and she sat across from him, taking the menu he held out for her. Neither of them said anything until a waitress walked up.

"Morning," the lady said, and Mac looked up. "Coffee?" Mac nodded, and the lady smiled at her before walking away. Mac raised an eyebrow and turned her attention to the man sitting across from her.

"I'm guessing she knows your usual order and doesn't need to ask?"

Dick nodded, still scanning the menu. "Her name's Kayla. She's probably an hour or so from the end of her shift, and I bet she'll ask what's going on before we leave here. She's never seen me here without Logan or a wetsuit, but usually both." He shrugged. "She'll probably assume that you're my girlfriend." Mac stared at him until he looked up. "I mean, why else would we be getting breakfast together this early? She knows that I live nearby, so this would be ideal for before work." He paused for a second. "Except I never come here before work, and I've never met friends here for breakfast…"

Mac blinked. "Well, there's the actual reason I'm here."

Dick shook his head. "I don't really want to tell her about the wreck or the message. The waitresses here gossip and I don't want one to show up at my house pretending to care."

Mac studied him. The guy in front of her was so different from the idiot she used to know. That guy would have jumped at the chance to have a pretty girl play nurse, but this guy seemed actively against it. Mac frowned when she realized that he hadn't actively been against _her_ help. Before she could say anything, Dick changed the subject.

"You should probably figure out what you want. She's pretty quick with the coffee."

Mac shook her head and looked down at the menu. It wasn't hard to pick – the pancakes looked amazing – and she closed her menu just as Kayla showed up at the table.

"Ready?" Kayla asked, setting mugs of coffee on the table for both of them, along with cream and sugar.

Mac looked at Dick, who nodded. "I want the house pancakes with fresh strawberries on the side, please."

Kayla grinned. "Good choice. And the usual for you?" The second half was directed at Dick, who nodded again. "Alright. It'll be right out."

Mac looked at Dick as Kayla walked away. "What's your usual?"

He reached across the table and opened her menu. It took him a moment to find the listing, reading upside-down and all, but when he did, he just tapped it and withdrew his hand. Mac scanned the description – a couple pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged. "It's good, especially after a morning of surfing."

"Yeah," Mac said, closing her menu again. "But why didn't you just tell me instead of finding it?"

He grinned. "Where's the fun in that?" Mac rolled her eyes, but couldn't stop herself from smiling.

"I didn't know this place existed," she said after a few beats of silence. "I mean, it's not really somewhere I'd search out, but I don't live too far from here either…" she trailed off and shrugged. "It's nice."

Dick smiled. "It's kind of new, I guess. It was just opening up when I bought the house, so maybe four or five years? I guess that's not really new anymore…" He squinted out the window at the ocean. "I can't exactly remember. I only found it because Logan and I drifted too far during one of our surfing mornings and basically emerged right out there." He pointed out the window at the water. "And then we realized it wasn't really that far from where we wanted to end up anyway. After that, it became almost a routine."

Mac watched him talk. "I always meant to ask – why did you guys move out of the Grand?"

Dick laughed. "I think Logan's accountant and mine got sick of us being kids. I'm not really sure what went on, because I think they were both supposed to keep our personal information to themselves, but one day we both got phone calls asking to meet them for lunch and then boom, it's basically an intervention." He shook his head, but Mac could see a smile on his face. "Now that I think about it, they were probably aware that both of us were without proper fathers – Aaron was dead and mine, well, he was basically a joke at that point. I didn't look up to him anymore. I guess they figured that it was worth a shot. Logan and I were both too lazy to find new accountants because the old ones pissed us off, and they knew it, so they took a chance and tried to talk sense into us." He looked up at her. "It worked, probably better than they expected. I mean, Logan and I were both sober at the time, which in itself was probably more than they expected, but I almost instantly agreed to look for a house. Logan… he didn't know what he wanted, because Ronnie was still gone and he wasn't even sure if he was going to stay here, so I told him he could move in with me until he figured it out. It's the least I could do for him."

Mac gaped at him. She hadn't expected a real explanation, let alone one that long. "So he's still figuring it out?"

Dick nodded. "Yeah, which is fine with me. I mean, Ronnie has her own place so maybe he'll move in with her at some point, but I'm cool with my best friend living with me. More surf time, more bro time." He shrugged and shook his hair out of his face. "It's like a piece of college that I got to keep into being an adult."

Mac nodded, unsure of what else to say. Dick, however, barely missed a beat.

"So do you know anything more about the accident?"

Mac blinked at the sudden conversation change, but nodded slowly. "I found the truck that hit you on camera. I don't know who owns it or where it came from…" she bit her lip, wondering again how much to tell him. "But I do know that it was a big black truck with a brush guard on the front. It's likely got some scratches now, but otherwise, there aren't any distinguishing marks. I couldn't even get a license plate number." She sighed, frustrated with her lack of information. "I guess it's a fair time to ask… do you know anyone with a truck matching that description?"

Dick thought for a second and shook his head. "Nope. The people I know that drive something close to that don't have any reason to hit me and then leave the scene… or to spray something in my yard. I'm guessing the two are connected?"

Mac studied him as he spoke. He had started off looking at her, but by the time he wound down, he was staring intently at his coffee.

"I could only guess," she said gently. "I honestly hope so, because that means it's one person and not two… but that means they know where you live. The upside, though, is they didn't do anything dangerous this time. Spray paint doesn't hurt."

Dick looked up briefly and met her eyes, but looked away just as fast. "I guess, yeah." He blew out a breath.

"Hey," she said in a low voice. "We'll figure it out. Whatever's going on, we'll get to the bottom of it."

Dick stared down at his coffee for a minute while Mac watched him intently. Just as he looked up and met her eyes, Kayla showed up with two steaming plates, effectively ruining whatever progress she was making with him. Mac watched as Dick turned towards the waitress with an expression she recognized from high school and college, and realized in an instant that it was very likely a well-practiced mask. She thought back to all the times she'd seen it and wondered suddenly if it had always been a mask, or just became one over time.

"So," Kayla started as she set the plates down and directed her attention to Mac. "How on earth did you get him here this early without the presence of a wetsuit?" Her voice had a tone to it that forced Mac to suppress a sigh. She was _so_ not in the mood to do any girl talk, especially with the amused _I told you so_ look Dick was sending her from his side of the booth.

"My stomach grumbled," she said with a shrug. "And he suggested breakfast." Mac started cutting into her pancakes, which looked and smelled fantastic.

That was clearly not the answer Kayla was expecting. She openly stared at Mac for a couple seconds before shifting her gaze to Dick. He grinned and gave her a half shrug. Mac hid a smile by taking a bite of her pancakes. Dick was letting Kayla think whatever she wanted, and Mac was surprised by the fact that she was suddenly fine with that. Maybe it was the knowledge that it might help the waitresses stay away from his house, which _he_ clearly wanted, or maybe it was just the thrill of doing something she didn't do very often, but whatever it was, it caused her to glance up at Kayla and give her a slight wink.

The girl's eyes widened slightly, and Mac almost laughed as she stumbled over an excuse and bolted from the table. Dick waited until she was out of earshot before laughing softly.

"That bit of gossip is going to spread like wildfire around here…" He glanced at Mac. She shrugged.

"They can think whatever they want as far as I'm concerned. Add it to the list of things I never thought would happen," she said before taking another bite of her pancakes. "Gossipy waitresses aside, this place is wonderful."

Dick grinned. "I've never had a bad meal here," he agreed, digging into his food.

/ / /

The police were gone by the time they got back to Dick's house. Mac wasn't really in a hurry, but she did need to run by the grocery store before she headed to her parents' house for lunch, so she dropped Dick off and left once he was safely inside. They hadn't been bothered by any of the waitresses, including Kayla, after the initial exchange, so they'd managed to have a light and completely non-important conversation without interruption. She had considered bringing up any of the questions she needed to ask him, but ultimately decided that there was a better time and place for that.

She made quick work of the grocery store and headed back to her house to drop off the things she wasn't taking to lunch with her. While she was there, she sent Veronica a text about the spray paint and attached one of the pictures she'd taken with her phone. She included a comment about how she was heading to a family lunch and the information in the text was literally all she knew so far. Years of experience had taught her that failure to do that would result in Veronica bombarding her with questions. It was an unnecessary waste of time that could hopefully be avoided.

Eventually, she made her way over to her parents' house. As per Saturday lunch tradition, she could hear her family in the backyard, so she skipped the front door and went straight for the gate. Her dad was standing at the grill, Ryan was cutting up vegetables, and her mom was just stepping out of the house holding a bowl full of what Mac guessed was potato salad. They all turned when the gate opened, and Mac realized how great it was to have a family that was so visibly happy to see her.

"Oh, good, you're here!" Natalie said, unknowingly shutting down the thought spiral that came with being especially grateful for her family. She put the bowl – confirmed to contain potato salad – on the picnic table and wrapped an arm around her daughter. "Come help me?" It sounded like a question, but Mac knew that it wasn't really. Still, she grinned.

"Sure, Mom." The two women made their way into the kitchen, where Natalie put Mac to work finishing up the pies she'd been working on. It didn't take long, and by the time she was ready to put them in the oven, Natalie was pulling French fries out. Mac couldn't help but laugh – burgers (even her vegetarian variety), potato salad, fries, and pies… she expected nothing less from her family. It had actually become a small comfort over the years. They were dependable, and almost predictable, and sometimes that was exactly what she needed.

When they were finally all gathered around the table, Mac's dad turned to her. "So how's Logan's friend?"

Mac stared at him over her burger. It took her a second before she remembered that she'd explained taking Dick home from the hospital by saying that one of Logan's friends was there as well.

"Oh. Eh, he's alright," she said with a shrug, deciding in an instant not to explain the full story to her family just yet. "Logan will be home tomorrow so I'm not really concerned."

Her dad nodded and moved on, asking Ryan about school or something, and Mac focused on her lunch. Her parents knew that Dick was still in her life because of Logan, and they had long ago stopped reacting negatively (at least, as far as she knew) whenever it came up that she was around him. Still, she wanted to avoid the topic for as long as possible. Her parents believed that the past was in the past, but that didn't mean they wouldn't bring it up if they thought she was making a mistake. Eventually, she'd have to tell them about the non-accident and the investigation that was sure to get a lot bigger when Veronica came back, but _eventually_ was not today. She hoped that by then, the evidence supporting her decision to help Dick was stronger than past experiences suggesting she shouldn't.

She also hoped that Dick wouldn't do anything to make her regret helping him. It wasn't like they were becoming best friends or anything, but Mac wanted to believe that they weren't just two people existing with mutual friends. So far, she had no indication that he might revert back to his old ways, but she knew better than to assume anything just yet.


	7. Chapter 7

**(A/N: Uhhh… oops? It's been a while…)**

Mac left her parents' house with a small bowl of potato salad. It was the only thing she needed, she explained, because she still had a ton of precooked meals and things that needed to be cooked before they went bad. The potato salad, however, she wouldn't pass up.

She made it to her own house before remembering that she needed to call Veronica and invite her to Wallace's the following night. When V wasn't out of town, it wasn't really necessary to _invite_ her… they all just kind of found out and ended up together. Occasionally, Mac and V would do something by themselves, but often times, Wallace and Logan joined them if it wasn't case related. As she got out of her car, Mac caught herself wondering what Dick had done all those nights when Logan was out with them. It hadn't even crossed her mind to invite him; they weren't big partiers and she never considered that, maybe, Dick wasn't either anymore. Now, she felt a little guilty about that.

Mac shook her head and scooped up the potato salad bowl with one hand and calling V with the other. The blonde answered before Mac made it to the front door.

"Hello?"

"Hey, V, how's it going?"

"Good! I'm not ready to go back to Neptune," V said with an exaggerated sigh.

Mac laughed and unlocked her door. "Maybe I can give you something to look forward to. Wallace and I are hanging out on Sunday and you're welcome to join us."

"So what you're saying is that Wallace needs tech help?" Veronica didn't miss a beat. "Sure, I'll join you. Logan will probably want to spend some quality bro time with Dick anyway."

Mac's guilt over excluding Dick came back, but she didn't admit it out loud. "Yeah, that would probably be good for both of them." She hesitated, not wanting to say anything about the conversations she'd had with Dick regarding his friendship with Logan. She knew that some time alone with Logan would be good for him. She just had to make sure that Dick didn't think Veronica was avoiding him. "Anyway," Mac said abruptly, pulling herself out of that line of thinking, "I'll pick you up at Logan's – or, I guess Dick's… but that way, I can say hey to Logan and make sure Dick hasn't died in the meantime, and then we can go see Wallace."

"Sounds like a plan," Veronica agreed. "Though don't be totally offended if I fall asleep on the couch or something. All this vacationing is hard work."

Mac scoffed as she made her way to the kitchen. "Yeah, yeah, sure it is. Fine, sleeping is allowed, but only after we get some quality talk time."

"We'll have to, but…" Veronica hesitated. "Maybe we should also meet up Monday, just the two of us, because I'm not sure how much we should discuss in front of Wallace. He's cool and all, but…" she trailed off for the second time, and Mac nodded to herself.

"Yeah, I was thinking that, too. It's probably for the best if we keep this a little lower-key than normal, until we know what we're dealing with."

"Speaking of what we're dealing with…" Veronica said in a quieter tone than before. "Those pictures."

Mac knew where this was going, so she grabbed a glass of water and made herself comfortable on the couch. "Yeah."

"I'm becoming more certain that this isn't a random thing."

Mac quickly debated with herself on how much to tell Veronica. She had her own concerns and theories, but would sharing them with the blonde do more harm than good, especially while V was out of town? Mac settled for somewhere in the careful middle. "I've been thinking the same thing," she said eventually. "This is Neptune, after all."

"And it is Dick," Veronica added. Mac wasn't really sure which of the two lent itself more towards everything being intentional, but it was a pretty bad combination, all things considered.

"I'm a little concerned about him," Mac admitted suddenly, biting her lip and wondering how Veronica would react to that.

The blonde sighed. "Yeah, I kind of am, too. Logan is, but he won't admit it."

That was something. "Does he just not want to worry you or does he not want to let himself get caught up in it?"

Veronica paused. "I think," she said carefully after a moment, "that he doesn't want me to feel like I have to investigate this. Like, for him. Which is _ridiculous_ , of course, but that way, if – well, when – we do look into it, it won't ever come back to him pressuring me to do it."

Mac had to laugh. "You know, Dick was very surprised when I told him we were looking into it."

Veronica gave a little laugh. "What did they expect us to do? Just sit here?"

"I have no idea." Mac shook her head. "I would think that they knew us better than that, but honestly, I gave up trying to guess what they were thinking a long time ago."

/ / /

Mac pulled into the driveway of Dick's beach house a little after five in the afternoon the following day. The rest of her Saturday had been decently relaxing, and the morning had been spent doing errands both in and out of the house. Now, though, she was more than ready to spend some quality time with her two best friends.

Even if that did mean setting up Wallace's new computer system.

She took a minute to survey the lawn. It had definitely been mowed, but some of the paint was still visible; it just wasn't legible. If she had to guess, she'd say that the grass had been cut shorter than normal in an effort to remove most of the paint. Mac didn't really blame Dick for that decision. After all, shorn grass was better than a threatening and unnerving message, so even if it looked a little weird for a while, she knew she'd make that decision, too.

Mac was just opening her car door when the beach house's front door opened. Veronica waved, but made no move to step outside, so Mac followed through on her initial plan to head up to the house. When she got to the door, Veronica stepped back, allowing her inside.

"I just need a minute," she said with a grin. "I might have gotten distracted."

Mac rolled her eyes, but smiled. "Yeah, yeah. Go on, take your time." Veronica disappeared into Logan's room and Mac turned towards the kitchen to get a glass of water while she waited. What she wasn't expecting was to find Logan manning the stove with all of the burners going and Dick animatedly retelling a story.

"-and the whole time, there was just this loud beeping, signaling, you know, that something was open and I just kept thinking, 'man, it's not open; the entire door is missing!'" Logan laughed, and Dick caught sight of Mac. "Hey, Mackie. When did you get here?"

Mac raised an eyebrow at him. "A few seconds ago? I'm here to steal Veronica away for the evening."

"You guys could stay here, if you wanted. I think Logan's making enough food to go around," Dick suggested.

Mac shrugged. "Thanks, but we're actually meeting up with Wallace." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "He gets a little whiny when we leave him out of the loop for too long."

Logan grinned. "Maybe we should invite him over sometime. Have some guy time. You and Veronica can go get manicures or something."

Mac laughed, both at Logan and at the look on Dick's face. "I was getting worried there for a minute, but as soon as you mentioned manicures, I knew you were kidding," she said, still giggling. Logan winked at her and Dick's confused look was slowly replaced by his normal expression.

"So we're not inviting Wallace, then?" Dick asked. "Not that I have anything against him, of course," he rushed to add. "Just…"

"You're fine, Dick," Mac interrupted, before he could dig himself into a hole he couldn't get out of. "Wallace is okay with not getting a whole lot of face time with the two of you."

"He prefers face time with us, and really, who can blame him?" Veronica chimed in, sweeping into the kitchen and peaking into one of the pots Logan was stirring.

"Not me," Logan leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. "Are you ladies ready to head out?"

Mac nodded. "I am if Veronica is." She looked towards her friend, who nodded. "Then I guess we are."

The girls said their goodbyes and returned to Mac's car. Mac waited until they were safely inside the vehicle before turning to Veronica. "Did you ask Dick anything about the wreck?"

V shook her head. "I wanted to, but Logan asked me to give him a break before starting in on him… plus, I knew that you already knew a little, so I figured I'd talk to you first and go from there."

Mac felt an inexplicable sense of relief but immediately pushed that thought out of her mind. Where that feeling came from was a problem for another day. Instead, she just nodded. "I think that's probably best. It takes a minute for Dick to drop the happy go lucky act and be serious."

Veronica was quiet for a second, and when Mac glanced at her, found her friend staring at her with a strange expression on her face. "Has Dick been serious lately?"

Mac shrugged and hoped that she wasn't blushing. "Kind of? He was a little serious at the hospital, and then again when the lawn got painted…" She trailed off and hesitated. "There were a couple times when I thought he'd open up more, but then someone interrupted us and he went right back to the Dick we're used to."

Veronica nodded; Mac watched her out of the corner of her eye and waited. "That's… not altogether surprising," Veronica said slowly after a few moments. "He's been… better? Kind of. It's hard to put my finger on what the difference is but I can stand his presence a little more than I ever could before."

Mac felt that unknown (and uncalled for) relief again, but instead of saying anything, just nodded, hoping Veronica would continue. When she didn't, Mac spoke up. "Do you think it's the whole concept of him having a job?"

Veronica tilted her head and thought about it, but ultimately shook her head. "Not really. He's matured, definitely, but it feels like there's something else. Something little, even, but just something that he's doing or not doing… I'll figure it out eventually, I'm sure. Or Logan will tell me."

Mac laughed and Veronica turned the radio up for a good song, and Dick wasn't mentioned again for a while.

/ / /

Wallace was, as expected, excited to see them. He was also (as expected) excited for Mac to set up the new system he'd bought (she was right, as was Veronica, but neither girl mentioned to him that they had guessed it), but to his credit, he didn't spend most of the evening gushing over the new toy. Mac set everything up while Wallace and V handled the pre-movie night snacks, and they all settled in to watch a couple movies. They often picked movies they had all seen at least once, because often times, there was more talking than there was watching – especially when they hadn't met up for a while. This time, the girls were very careful to gloss over Dick's accident, the lawn incident, and their thoughts on all of it, carefully steering the conversation to safe things, like V's vacation, Mac's company, and Wallace's new job. Predictably, Veronica fell asleep halfway through the second movie, and Mac and Wallace let her sleep until the end of it.

"So, you're teaching basketball now," Mac said quietly, returning to the topic of Wallace's job after tossing a blanket over her sleeping friend.

"Yeah!" Wallace grinned. "I'm going to be a role model to impressionable young minds."

"Oh good grief."

"Hey now! I'm a fantastic role model," Wallace said, and Mac did her best not to snort.

"Right, yeah, okay. Of course you are."

"Come on, now," Wallace countered. He was still grinning, but Mac decided that the time had come to stop giving him a hard time and actually give him credit for the job he'd taken.

"Yeah, okay. You're going to be a fantastic role model for impressionable young minds. You have a great task. The future is in your hands." She delivered the words as seriously as she could, but lost it when Wallace started laughing. "Stop! I'm serious! You'll be great, really. Teach them how to make the baskets. It'll be great. V and I will come to your games." She paused. "Probably."

Wallace rolled his eyes and nodded at Veronica. "Yeah, she's going to be my personal cheer squad. Snores and all."

"Be serious, you're just doing this for the snickerdoodles, aren't you?"

Wallace snapped his fingers. "You got me!"

Mac grinned and stood up. "I knew it. Okay, let's get this stuff cleaned up so I can get Veronica home before I also fall asleep." Wallace nodded and followed suit, taking the empty popcorn bowl with him. They made quick work of the clean up, having done this so many times that they knew the drill. Mac waited until she was basically ready to head out before gently shaking V, who mumbled her way through waking up.

"Comfy, no thanks…"

"Nope, sorry Bond, you need to wake up so you can go to sleep properly."

"I love you, V," Wallace chimed in, "but I don't want Echolls showing up here at two in the morning wondering why you never came home."

Veronica groaned as she sat up. "I'm not technically going _home_ , but okay, okay, close enough."

"Thank you," Mac said lightly as Veronica stretched and stood up. "I don't think I could get you into the car if you were asleep."

Veronica just shrugged. "I would have woken up eventually…"

"But now you're awake and you can go back to your man," Wallace said, pretending to shoo them out. At least, Mac assumed he was just pretending and wasn't actually dead set on them leaving right that second.

"We're going! Tired of us already?" Veronica teased.

Wallace raised an eyebrow, as if he were considering his answer. He couldn't keep a straight face for very long, and Mac hid a grin at the memory of a conversation she'd had with Veronica about Wallace becoming a softie as they got older. Mac had a theory about that, but she wasn't about to suggest to Veronica that Wallace's attitude had anything to do with her coming back after college. In fact, Mac didn't even want to think about that for too long. She knew how Wallace had felt when V left, and she knew how he'd felt when she came back – both times, torn somewhere between hoping she'd left the drama behind for good and missing her, wanting the best for her but also wanting her there. It was a complicated set of thoughts, and Mac promptly decided that it was way too late to think about that now.

Veronica had her shoes on by the time Mac snapped out of her thoughts, so they hugged Wallace and made their way back to Mac's car.

"Are you going to come inside for a while?" V asked, once they were on their way back to Dick's house.

Mac shrugged. "Probably not, actually. I'm getting tired and I don't really want to fall asleep on Dick's couch…"

Veronica laughed. "Yeah, okay. That makes sense." She paused for just a minute. "We're still on for tomorrow, right? To actually talk about the case? It feels weird to call it a _case_ , but you know what I mean."

Mac nodded. "I know what you mean and yes, we're still on for tomorrow. I do actually need to go into the office, but we could do lunch?"

"Lunch works for me. I expect to sleep in tomorrow morning. Vacation recovery and all."

Mac laughed and rolled her eyes before asking Veronica how her trip actually was. The rest of the car ride was spent with Veronica recounting various funny moments, and by the time Mac pulled into the beach house's driveway, she was really wishing she had a vacation scheduled.

"You're the boss, Q, and you can work from your laptop if you really have to. Take a long weekend and get out of town. We could do a girls' trip, if you wanted to. Or you could go get away from everyone. You need a break."

Mac nodded, like normal, but for the first time, was actually considering it. "Maybe I will. Not until we figure out what's going on with Dick, but maybe afterwards."

Veronica opened the car door and slid out, turning back to Mac with a raised eyebrow. "I'm going to hold you to that. When this is over, you're taking a vacation."

 **(A/N: So, I think I'm back! It's been a crazy time since I last updated, but I do fully intend to finish this story so stick with me. If you're coming back after ages of me being gone, thank you! If you've just found this, hello! I don't plan to have the next update take quite as long.) (:**


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